Results

CEP discussion paper

Internal pay equity and the quantity-quality trade-off in hiring

Firms face significant constraints in their ability to differentiate pay by worker productivity. We show how these internal equity constraints generate a quantity-quality trade-off in hiring: firms which offer higher wag...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Monopsony and the wage effects of migration

If labour markets are competitive, migration can only affect native wages via marginal products. But under imperfect competition, migration may also increase wage mark-downs ? if firms have greater monopsony power over m...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy:

Education and geographical mobility: the role of the job surplus

Better educated workers accept many more long-distance job offers, and relocate quicker following local shocks. I attribute this to a fundamental feature of their labor market experience, unrelated to geography: large re...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

The contribution of immigration to local labor market adjustment

The US faces persistent spatial disparities in joblessness, which should theoretically be eliminated by population reallocation. Can immigration accelerate this adjustment process? I estimate that new immigrants account ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Immigration, monopsony and the distribution of firm pay

We argue that the arrival of immigrants with low reservation wages can strengthen the monopsony power of firms. Firms can exploit "cheap" migrant labor by offering lower wages, though at the cost of forgoing potential na...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Monopsony and the wage effects of migration

In a generalization of the well-known ?immigration surplus? result, we show immigration must always increase the average native worker?s marginal product, in any long-run constant returns economy. But in a monopsonistic ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The contribution of immigration to local labor market adjustment

The US suffers from persistent local disparities in employment rates, which should in principle be eliminated by population mobility. Can immigration accelerate this process? Remarkably, on average since 1960, new immigr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Immigration, local crowd-out and undercoverage bias

Using decadal census data since 1960, I cannot reject the hypothesis that new immigrants crowd out existing residents from US commuting zones and states one-for-one. My estimate accounts explicitly for dynamic local adju...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Commuting, migration and local joblessness

Britain suffers from persistent spatial disparities in employment rates. This paper develops an integrated framework for analyzing two forces expected to equalize economic opportunity across areas: commuting and migratio...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Education and geographical mobility: the role of the job surplus

Better-educated workers form many more long-distance job matches, and they move more quickly following local employment shocks. I argue this is a consequence of larger dispersion in wage offers, independent of geography....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The contribution of foreign migration to local labor market adjustment

The US suffers from large regional disparities in employment rates which have persisted for many decades. It has been argued that foreign migration offers a remedy: it ?greases the wheels? of the labor market by accelera...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

The persistence of local joblessness

Differences in employment-population ratios across US commuting zones have persisted for many decades. We claim these disparities represent real gaps in economic opportunity for individuals of fixed characteristics. Thes...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The persistence of local joblessness

Local differences in US employment-population ratios and unemployment rates have persisted over many decades. Using decennial census data from 1950-2010, we investigate the reasons for this. The persistence cannot be exp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why are higher skilled workers more mobile geographically? The role of the job surplus

The skill gap in geographical mobility is entirely driven by workers who report moving for a new job. A natural explanation lies in the large expected surplus accruing to skilled job matches. Just as large surpluses ease...Read more...

Journal article

Quantitative Economics:

Do households use home-ownership to insure themselves? Evidence across US cities

Are households more likely to be homeowners when ?housing risk? is higher? We show that home-ownership rates and loan-to-value (LTV) ratios at the city level are strongly negatively correlated with local house price vola...Read more...